A Blog About My Temper

I have a terrible temper. Let's start with that. I am mean when I'm angry. I think I have told most of the people I know about this fact. I'm not proud of it. It is the worst part of my personality. I have a short fuse and I can turn on people in a heartbeat. It is the monster I have dealt with my entire life. I was a mean little kid. Example, this one time we were sitting around looking at baseball cards and the neighbor kid grabbed one of my Ozzie Smith cards and bent it and I threw him down his steps. Another time a neighbor kid called me a bitch and I attacked him and knocked out his front tooth. That was me. I had a reputation by third grade as being a kid you didn't mess with. I wasn't a bully just someone that people knew would beat the crap out of you if you pissed off and they knew that it didn't really take much to piss me off. By the time I got to high school I didn't want to be that person. I never fought in high school. I never raised a fist at anyone. Honestly I hated that part of me so much at I became a total pacifist. That didn't mean that my rage went away. I tried to bury it. Mostly I was successful. I did learn that alcohol brought out the monster. There was the time at a party I got mad and kicked a hole in my friends wall. I know I threatened to beat peoples asses before when I was drunk. Rage. Pure and simple. Then I discovered something that stopped the rage. If I caused myself physical pain everything became calm. I would get enraged and find a wall to punch. I feel the monster taking over and I would find something solid to hit and I would hit it with such force that my entire hand would swell up. Not a good solution but it calmed things down. That solved things for a long time. I would still rage but I wouldn't go after anyone and that made me feel better. Flash forward a few years. I got really upset with someone I knew. They not only made me angry but hurt my feelings very deeply. Hitting the walls didn't help. It didn't make the monster go back inside. That was the first time I cut. As I watched the blood seep from my body a strange calm over took me. It was a completely different calm than what hitting walls gave me. Everything was just so quiet. Watching as life slowly trickled out of myself I didn't feel any of the pain and anger that was inside of me. It became an addiction for me. A crutch to lean on when things got bad. The bad thing was that I desired that calm. So I would cut more. It was out of control. I knew I needed to stop and I did. I would go give blood and watch all of that life trickle out of me and I would get that calmness. I could go every eight weeks and get my fix of calm. Then I started having trouble with my iron levels and couldn't give blood which led to me cutting again. I would get hysterical if I didn't have my box cutter with me and not be able to touch it and know if I needed it it was there. One time I was so upset that I left it at work that I ran to the store to buy a box of straight razors just to make sure if the rage and pain came I could keep it quiet. That was a bad day and I stopped for a long time. To take my mind off everything I started drinking more. I didn't seem to be raging out of control anymore when I drank so that was a plus. It was a new crutch to keep the monster a bay. Don't cut just drink. I've had varying degrees of success with that. Drinking has brought the monster back. I'm trying not to cut. I gave away my favorite tools and I'm lost. I've raged on people and didn't have my faithful friend with me. I don't have it now. I really want it. I want to get my temper back under control Anyway that is an explanation of my temper.